


Pour One Out for the Wicked

by cohobbitation



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Tora Naprem is floating over Dukat in a haze of doing the damn right thing for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 05:18:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cohobbitation/pseuds/cohobbitation
Summary: When the Changeling looked him in the face and lied about their prime murder's suspect's innocence, Dukat should have... He didn't know what he should have done. Shot something, two somethings; put the corridor on lockdown. He didn't. He let Odo get away with it, because he was going to let Kira Nerys get away with it too. He owed her that much.





	Pour One Out for the Wicked

She looks nothing like her mother. She's beautiful, but that's the only commonality. He doesn't know where she got the brawlish set to her jaw. He doesn't know where she got her sharply-upflung eyes, black as flint and sparking like the business end of some ancient weapon. He flicks back on the pad to the image of her hangdog father, worn thin and worn out and _vanished_ through the Cardassian sensor net long ago. Back when it still mattered. He wondered, with something dark coiling through his gut that might have been hate or might have been nausea, if the girl had had anything to do with it.

There had been no picture on her threat assessment file. At first glance, she had a dark tangled mane, as unpreposessing as any mining drudge. But she'd passed so close to him under the halogen flare of the lighting that he'd seen her roots, houndsblood red. Hardly her first falsehood. Hardly her last. She'd flinched when he caught her arm, and it was a good show, but her breath had never even flickered. She'd stumbled right up against his ribs, the weakest patch in his armor, and he hadn't known if he was going to take a knife today.

He didn't really wonder if she had anything to do with Kira Taban's disappearance. He knew. She was an exemplary liar, and a better soldier. She had probably known how to shoot before even he did. There seemed to be nothing in her of Meru.

Frail, wasted Meru, who had fallen apart in his hands. Meru, who had needed rescue, looked so saveable, and withered to the point he couldn't even look at her without seeing the specter of death.

He tapped his stylus on the desk, _tap, tap, tap,_ echoing like a drumbeat for any hope of keeping his mind in order. He looked at the threat assessment.

He saw death in this woman too, but it was one he knew. One he understood. She was a beast, and a cunning one; there was blood and tissue in her fangs, both red and black. There would be no gentling her; she knew what flesh tasted like. But to shoot her for the bounty...? That was the sort of kill that left you poorer for your trophy.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

**TARGET: KIRA NERYS. BORN: DAHKUR PROVINCE, CIRCA 2343. WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE.**

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

**A GUERILLA ASSOCIATED WITH TREASONOUS PARTIES: SHAKAAR CELL, KOHN MA CELL, OTHER ALLEGIANCES UNKNOWN. CAME TO PROMINENCE DUE TO ATROCITIES COMMITTED AGAINST UNION FORCES AT THE ROUT OF GALLITEP. CONNECTED TO AN INTERMINABLE TRAIL OF RUTHLESS CRIMINALITY, INCLUDING HIGHWAY BANDITRY, INFILTRATION AND ASSASSINATION, DESECRATION OF THE GALOR, RABBLE-ROUSING, AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. CONSIDERED AN IRREDEEMABLE THREAT TO CARDASSIAN JUSTICE.**

Kira Nerys. They knew the name. They didn't know the face.

The stylus stopped.

Dukat hauled his boots off the desk, knees creaking like he'd grown old while he wasn't looking. His ribs ached, low on the other side where he'd taken a knife on another day. From another 'irredeemable threat', one who'd shown less military acumen and far less... perverse valor.

They were wrong, these terrorists, and backward and superstitious with no common core. They fell to infighting with the slightest of pressures. They knew nothing of obedience, of loyalty to a greater authority. Theirs was a twisted sort of patriotism, one that would slay their own children before they let the victor's hand rear them. But they were.... _grand_ , somehow, in their squalor and in their spite. Proud, still.

She was really nothing like Meru at all.

He purged the file before he came to his senses. He was in a bit of a rush; he knew if he had time to think this through, he might do something he'd regret. He cracked his fingers — his knuckles ached too — and typed the first alibi that came to mind.

**KIRA NERYS. A MINOR OPERATIVE WHOSE ACTIVITIES ARE LIMITED TO RUNNING ERRANDS FOR TERRORIST LEADERS.**

He saved the file. He stared at the blanked screen.

At length, he stood up and poured himself a kanar. Thought of Taban, the man he'd promised to take care of, and somehow lost. Thought of debts he had yet to pay.

He turned back to the console and raised his glass. Saluted.

"Don't say I never did anything for you, kid."


End file.
